


The Party Side

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 16:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15004652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hupperdook knows how to party. Fjord might know how to party, but is trying to keep some things on lockdown. Caleb is trying to make it work with this gang of assholes, so that means keg stands.





	The Party Side

**Author's Note:**

> In before episode 24 josses it. The idea was kicking around my head all week and I had a few hours where I couldn't do much other than write or stew in my juices, so here we are.
> 
> Might edit this in the future.

Hupperdook knew how the fuck to party. The streets were filled with hammered gnomes who were singing and dancing and jumping off of shit, swinging from other shit, and smashing other shit on the ground. Several bands were playing across the city; once you were out of earshot of one, you started hearing the thumping bass of another. Technicolor lights were strung across the city, painting everyone and everything in colors brighter and even more obnoxious and gaudy than Molly’s coat.

 

Fjord wasn’t been much of a party guy - not always due to lack of interest, but rather lack of opportunity. The kids that picked on him didn’t turn around and think to invite him to their ragers once they were older, and the shindigs on ships weren’t so much parties as those were a recipe for disaster when you were several hundred miles offshore and had to keep your wits about you. There was a time in his adolesence when the people he...ran with...incidentally were also the sort to enjoy a mad night of drinking now and then, and so he did on occasion partake in drunken merriment and sometimes even enjoyed himself, but his recent years under Vandrin were much more disciplined.

 

For the month he had worked with The Mighty Nein, he had tried to avoid getting too carried away in drunken shenanigans. He had some cards he kept close to the chest, and he didn’t want to end up spilling his guts while shitfaced with this crazy bunch of people who could be entirely too nosy and too charming and too easy to relax his guard around. 

 

So, it made the sudden eruption of an insane gnomish rager all around them a little complicated.

 

He wanted to just let loose, not spend all his minutes evaluating and calculating and picking his words carefully like pieces in a game of chess. At some point, he had started to genuinely like these people and wanted to just have fun with them instead of weighing their contributions to the group against their potential liabilities. 

 

And he had shoved some fucking weird ass rock into his guts, and for the most part, everyone had reacted with concern rather than suspicion. At least no one had suggested they kill him or turn him in somewhere for coin. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let them in a little bit. Maybe they could help him.

 

But it’s hard to get the whiskey back in the barrel once it’s all over the ground, so it was safer still to keep those secrets close. Maybe he should just hold back.

 

He decided to do just that, at least at first, and found a nice dark corner to slink off to. Beau and Molly were easily swept up by the drunken crowd, and Jester, while not partaking of any drinks, easily joined in with the party spirit. As the general population of Hupperdook was rather on the short end, it was still easy to see those three through the crowds. Fjord had lost track of Nott, but presumably she had disguised herself as a gnome and merged with the crowd as well. That left Yasha and Caleb, who were also out of sight, but presumably doing something similar to Fjord and keeping away from the festivities. 

At least, that was what Fjord assumed, until he decided he might as well enjoy one free drink and crossed the street to go grab one from an open table, when his eyes caught sight of tall, broad Yasha grinning wide as she held onto Caleb’s ankles while the normally reserved and anxious wizard did a keg stand.

 

A small crowd, including Beau and Molly, had gathered around and was chanting “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” as he chugged down the ale Jester was funneling down his gullet. The chant wavered in and out of ferocity as he just kept going, drawing the seconds out into forever, but it built to a crescendo as he finally stuttered a bit. He recovered slightly, and then the chanting erupted into hollars and cheering as he bailed out and got a splash of ale poured on his face.

 

Through the noise, he could hear Jester’s shout of “YEAAAAAAAAH!” as she spread her arms like she was presenting Caleb proudly to the world, and Beau and Molly simultaneously declaring, “THAT’S OUR FUCKING WIZARD!” He thought he could hear a high scratchy voice say, “I’m so proud,” somewhere near him, but it was hard to tell. 

 

Yasha set Caleb back on his feet and clapped him on the shoulder, smiling brightly. He returned the smile with his own sloppy grin and then bowed to the crowd in an exaggerated manner, almost falling over in the process. Beau and Molly both rushed in to be the next one on the keg, but Fjord kept his eyes trained on Caleb for a few moments, watching the clearly smashed ball of social anxiety slip away from the crowd that moments before had been nearly hailing him as a hero. 

 

He figured Caleb was sneaking off to go throw up somewhere, and decided to follow him. He could at least make sure the guy didn’t fall down in his own puke or something. Maybe he could slide himself into the party after that and join the fun, or at least enjoy cheering on people doing keg stands.

 

As he approached Caleb, who had found the side of a nice building to sloach against, he gave a low, “Hey,” to announce his presence.

 

Caleb’s head snapped over to him, his whole body seeming to waver unsteadily. “Oh, h-hey, Fjord - sorry, Fjord,” Caleb slurred and stuttered, drawing the “j” out of Fjord’s name, apologizing for it, and then doing it again. 

 

“That was an impressive showing. Didn’t know you had it in you,” Fjord said, jerking his head in the direction of the keg stand crowd.

 

“Oh,  _ ja _ . Haha. I have a few hidden talents,” Caleb replied, a big sloppy smile smeared all over his face, laced with some strange confidence, or if not confidence precisely, at least a lack of self-deprecation. He pointed and shook his finger at Fjord, “You - haven’t been out partying all night.”

 

“No, I figured I’d sit it out. Be the designated driver,” Fjord said. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the deepest truth either. “You on the other hand - I mean, I didn’t take you for the party type.”

 

Caleb laughed again, so freely and easily, it was a little alarming. “No, I generally am not. But, you know, I thought I’d try out the uh...the uh...comraderie of a keg game.” He put his hand up and spun his fingers around like he was trying to form the shape of something, or maybe he was casting a spell. “I’m...you know...uh...trying to be more...uh...friendly?”

 

“By doing a hand stand and chugging down shitty ale?” Fjord asked, not masking his amusement.

 

“...Yyyeah,” Caleb paused for a bit, looking uncertain but contemplative. “It seemed to...work, I think.”

 

Fjord smiled a bit. His opinion of Caleb had shifted a lot in the month they had known eachother. He’d first regarded Caleb as just some dirty, smelly hobo. Soon after he saw him as a valuable font of knowledge and skill, if a bit rude and panicky, and eventually that morphed into a scheming cheat that would leech off of and scam the group. Now he regarded Caleb as kind of an asshole, but talented and full of quirks and surprises, with a hard, calculating and paranoid edge (which was often useful, as long as it wasn’t pointed at Fjord) that was trying in his fumbling way to truly be part of the group. Caleb likely did not have the purest of intentions for that (then again none of them did, but Caleb was particularly concerning). Maybe Caleb would seem like less of an asshole to Fjord if he didn’t turn into an interrogater everytime Fjord so much as mentioned a dream, but at least the guy was on the path to being a functional group member.

 

“The others seemed to enjoy it,” Fjord agreed. 

 

There was another pause in the conversation, then Caleb turned it back to Fjord with, “So what about you? Wh-why are you not out, uh, ‘partying it up?’”

 

“Not much of a party guy,” Fjord replied with a shrug.

 

“Really?” Caleb asked, genuinely curious. “I’ve seen you talk about ‘getting turnt’ and you seem to enjoy yourself in a good fight. I mean, you are also so very clever and reasonable and calm and…” 

 

Caleb’s prattle sort of tapered off and Fjord picked up the line of conversation with, “I mean, there was a period in my life where I went to a few parties, but working on ships - there’s not really time and place for parties, and when I was at port, uh, well I didn’t really get the invites, you know?”

 

Caleb leaned in towards Fjord, unsteady from alcohol, and leering like if he squeezed his eyes tight enough he would somehow be able to see through whatever mask he presumed Fjord was wearing. “ _ You  _ weren’t invited to parties?” he question dripping with disbelief.

 

“No,” Fjord said definitively. “No, I uh-. The half-orc thing. Probably my attitude as well. People didn’t want to party with a tempermental...monster man.”

 

Caleb’s suspicion was knocked right off his face and he looked at Fjord with something that almost looked like sympathy. The sudden sympathy and his drunken stupor must have caught Caleb completely offguard as something slipped right out of his mouth. “I don’t mean to dis-disbelieve your story, but I...I can’t imagine anyone knowing you and not finding you utterly fascinating.”

 

Fjord was stunned and speechless.  _ Utterly fascinating _ .

 

When he finally recovered, he carefully explained, “I wasn’t always...as...sociable as I am now.” Considering his words, as he always did, and stepping through old memories like creeping across a floor full of broken glass, he continued, “And like I said before, people did not particularly like my...appearance.”

 

Caleb leaned towards him again, staring in that suspicious way he usually did, but there was less distrust than there normally was and more of something akin to confusion.

 

“I mean, Fjord, you have to realize that anyone who tells you that you’re anything less than the most gorgeous man they’ve ever laid eyes on is lying, right?”

 

“I-I- um,” Fjord stammered and looked away. Caleb had spoken like he was lecturing Fjord on some commonly known fact and not saying something that could be taken as blatantly flirtacious, but Fjord felt his cheeks get hot all the same. 

 

Fjord generally preened under praise, especially for his appearance, but he would have never expected to be reduced to a blushing, stammering mess from Caleb Widogast of all people. Caleb, who had shriveled into a little pool of embarrassment when the party saw him clean-shaven (although could seem quite charming when he was focused on squirming a deal out of a shopkeeper, but even still, Fjord had never expected to be the object of anything like that). 

 

“You’re, uh...different, when you’re drunk,” Fjord mumbled out awkwardly, not sure what other word would be more specific to describe Caleb right now. Bold? Confident? Forward? Caleb’s manners didn’t actually seem all that different, but where did all this, “utterly fascinating” and “most gorgeous man” shit come from? Caleb had definitely tried to flatter Fjord before, undoubtedly some attempt at getting on Fjord’s good side, but this was...a lot.

 

Caleb seemed to recoil, and his eyes seemed to flash with embarrassment like maybe he had just had some moment of self-awareness, then he turned to face the ground very pointedly. “S-sorry, I uh- I didn’t mean to- um…” and he scrambled for some explanation. “Alcohol, uh, makes you more, uh…makes you less...um...”

 

“Lowers your inhibitions,” Fjord finished for him, also pointedly not looking in his direction.

 

Caleb just nodded, just facing the ground.

 

After another long pause, tense with...something (awkwardness. Uncertainy. All the complicated baggage between the two of them. Something.), Fjord cleared his throat and said, “Well, I think I’ll go join in with the others. You good here?”

 

“ _ Ja _ , I’m good,” Caleb replied immediately. “I’m, um, partied out for the moment.”

 

Fjord nodded and started to turn to head towards the others. “Well, I’ll, uh, see you around then.”

 

“See you around,” Caleb replied.

 

Fjord let Caleb be and walked towards the sounds and sights of the rest of the group shouting and jumping and making fools of themselves. The noise and light and frantic energy of the party started to absorb his mind, but before he disappeared entirely into the party’s call, he briefly considered that maybe Caleb’s apparent focus on Fjord was less scheming and suspicious than he had thought, and that maybe he wouldn’t mind seeing more of...this side of Caleb.


End file.
